Saturn’s F Ring

Saturn’s F Ring

The F ring of Saturn as seen from the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

An interesting offering from the Cassini spacecraft. The JPL caption (below) says “the ring appears to separate from the core of the ring”. It looks more to me as if the ring isn’t so much separated as it is sort of folded, but then I’m no expert. Click the image and have a look to see what you think.

Saturn’s F ring often appears to do things other rings don’t. In this Cassini spacecraft image, a strand of ring appears to separate from the core of the ring as if pulled apart by mysterious forces.
Some ring scientists believe that this feature may be due to repeated collisions between the F ring and a single small object.
Eight stars are also visible in this image.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 49 degrees below the ringplane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 19, 2013.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 120 degrees. Image scale is 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) per pixel.